Oregon's seven universities have proposed an average 7.5 percent tuition increase for full-time, resident undergraduate students next year, pushing the average annual cost of tuition and fees to $7,634. ...I suppose we need all that extra money for rock-climbing walls, re-branding, ... who cares if the promise of college education as the ticket to economic prosperity is a mere selling strategy, right?
The proposed increases, which the State Board of Higher Education is expected to approve Friday, range from 5.1 percent at Western Oregon University to 9 percent at PSU, the University of Oregon and the Oregon Institute of Technology. Proposed increases are 8.1 percent at Oregon State University and 6.8 percent at Southern Oregon and Eastern Oregon universities.
In my op-ed piece, I wrote that:
At the end of the day, the only beneficiaries are colleges and universities that are, naturally, recording enrollment increases -- even in my classes in the summer. This enrollment growth then triggers the need for additional facilities, which necessitates a demand for more money from students and taxpayers.But, if the rates are going up 7.5%, .... oh wait, didn't I voice the same worries quite a few months ago?
Such a higher educational system cannot go on forever. As economist Herbert Stein famously remarked, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." I suspect that it will come to a crashing halt when students, and their families and taxpayers, begin to see the numbers flashing by really fast on their meters.
1 comment:
The answer, I guess, is to put in lotsa money at the start and come up with facilities to accomodate lotsa students. Like it was done eons back in Neyveli, with JHSS. Even though we are talking about an university and JHSS is not one. But then, if we started off talking about rattlers then we can surely talk about snakes I guess. (I sincerely hope a rattlesnake is indeed a snake and not strictly some other zoological classification!!)
170 teachers, 4000 students, even 3 decades back ;-)
That the growth rate was not sustained due to petty grievances amongst the faculty and unnaturally (and unbelievably) huge egos is another matter altogether.
But the point is, the school could have handled the growth and then some. It was designed to handle pressure.
But even that, sadly, was not a show-piece solution. But the problems there had to do with inept and corrupt managers than the idea itself, so, I guess, you cannot jump and blame the institution.
But, yes, you are right- university management, even in the US, is indeed about developing a grand sales pitch to attract prospective students, spending about half of the money they bring on more facilities, then bring more students in, spend half of that money on "facilities".....And so it goes on.
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